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BIBLE VS. USURY. 



"Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brethren. * * * Unto a stranger 
thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon 
usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine 
hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it." (Deut. 23 :L 20.) 
The law God gave from Sinai to his colony of exslaves emigrating to the 
land of promise under his leadership as their king contained two anti-monopo- 
ly characteristics unlike any other national code; the proper observance of 
which would necessarily prevent the impoverishing or enslavement of produc- 
ers by aristocratic monopolists, and forestall all unjust accumulations of 
wealth in the hands of the few, and secure to every citizen laborer the produce 
of his labor. These were the prohibition of land monopoly, and prohibition of 
usury which will be the subject of our present discourse. 

In order to a proper exegeses of the Scripture against this crime it is necessary 
to have a knowledge of a just monetary system. Of this I can only outline a 
synopsis in this short treatise. 

First, it should be remembered that our world has never been blessed with 
a pure democratic republic such as the Mosaic code contained in embryo, and 
the royal law, "love thy neighbor as thyself" enjoins upon all nations. Gov- 
ernments were first established by military force in which might and not right 
is the ruling power. Nations are ruled by kings and their few courtiers, or by 
a few aristocratic monopolists too generally ruling by the might of cunning 
and deceit, or military force in which the rights of producers are but little 
more regarded than as regarding them is deemed subservient to the interests 
of the rulers. Our christian republic in which the voice of the people is the 
ruling power comes nearer perhaps being a true republic than any other. But 
our toilers, who produce our wealth as well as our ruling classes being educa- 
ted under a classic and traditional erroneous public sentiment created and con- 
trolled by the dominating chieftains of the world in the interest of monopo- 
lists, have the unjust doctrines and principles of usurers and other monopo- 
lists so entrenched in the public conscience and organic laws of our own coun- 
try and other countries as a righteous thing that monopolists easily influence 
the producers to vote for their own enslavement to their legalized extortions. 

These facts account for gold and silver being used from earliest antiquties 
down to the present time as a medium of exchange or money basis. However 
well it may have been adapted to the world's use as a medium of exchange in 
the early ages when all commerce was little more than a system of barter can 
be no indication that it has exclusive adaptability at present as money or a 
basis for money. It is possible that in those early ages before the origin of 
coined money (about B. C. 700) that the gold and silver production of the 
world was sufficiently proportioned to the volume of trade to answer the pur- 
pose of a medium of exchange; although it is not reasonable to suppose that 
they had discovered the best medium for the use of -the people even of that 



age, for their money was only bartered by weight. Notwithstanding we have 
intimation in the Bible that silver and perhaps gold also were used as a cur- 
rency from the days of Abraham (Gen. 23:16) down to the New Testament age, 
yet no where is it enjoined in the Scriptures as a currency nor is there any 
intimation, direct or indirect, that it is well adapted to this end, or most ex- 
pedient for this use. The simple circumstance that these metals were so long 
current as money is no more evidence that their exclusive use as such is right 
or expedient for the whole people of the civilized world, or any part of it, 
than that slavery and concubinage are, which were current from the days of 
Abraham down to the New Testament age though condemned by implication 
in the Mosaic code, and more directly by Christ and his apostles: yet to some 
extent practically tolerated by the church in those ages, or that the acquisition 
of wealth by the aristocracy is right or expedient in taking advantage of the 
ignorance or circumstances of dependent laborers in securing legislation 
against them in the interest of monopolists, which to a greater or less extent 
was practiced in all ages and still is practiced by church members and sanc- 
tioned and defended, either directly or indirectly, by the church, which evil 
an exclusive gold and silver money is most cunningly adapted to sustain by 
the power of usury. The few incidental allusions to these metals as the cur- 
rency of nations in all ages which we find in the Bible and other books, so far 
are they from being any evidence of their adaptability as an exclusive curren- 
cy for the ends of justice and expediency that they afford a presumptive evi- 
dence of no little weight that it is a most shrewd devise of the capitalists (who 
have always been the rulers) and sustained by them in honor through the ages 
by which they covertly extort usury from the producers by the power of gov- 
ernment ; for on the exclusive gold and silver money system capitalists of all 
nations in all ages have secured financial and other legislation to a greater or 
less extent in their interest and against the laborers, whom, even among the 
nations of highest civilization, they reduce to the most abject poverty and 
slavery, while they are immensely enriched as the result of unjust laws and 
social adjustment. The injustice that the monetary system of the world en- 
ables the few to practice upon the many who create all exchangable values 
gives evidence of the imperative need of a better system. 

In order to an understanding of the imperfections of the existing monetary 
system and what a correct monetary system must be we must always bear in 
mind these principles in relation to the true functions of money : 

First, money is simply an instrument to effect exchanges with, consequen- 
tly its true value as money is not in its intrinsic worth as a commedity ; but 
its pure monetary value is extraneous to the material composing it. This is 
evident from the fact that if gold and silver were demonetized by all the na- 
tions of the world, and one man or company owned and monopolized the whole 
of it, and its production, he could not raise the price of it much above the 
price it would be were it distributed among many competitors. For the 
world does not need it to supply any of the neccessaries of life. And did all 
live in the humble style of most of the laborers who create the wealth of the 
world there would be no demand for it ; it would be a drug on the market, not 
as valuable as paper. Those selfish and proud people, who, contrary to Scrip- 
ture, and an obsolete rule of the M. E. church (although remaining a dead 
letter in her discipline which no minister can enforce) "adorn themselves with 
gold, pearls and costly array," (Tim. 2:9) create the demand for gold and silver 
as a commodity, and not those who live as Christ and his disciples live, and as 
Agur prayed,— "Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food con- 
venient for me. " This metalic commodity money is such "a root of all evil 
[all the evils of monopoly"] and like alcohol can innocently be indulged to 
such an insignificant extent that our ecclesastical temperance army, which is 
such a potent factor in politics, cannot consistently work for the entire legal 
prohibition of alcohol without working equally hard for the entire legal pro- 
hibition of the greater evil ; namely, the exclusive use of gold and silver as a 
money basis. But did any one man or company of men own and monopolize 
iron or breadstuff, and its production they could raise the price to any desira- 
ble height, and become masters of the world, because these commodities are 
so highly useful they would be compelled to pay any price rather than do 
without them. 



Secondly, all money whether gold, silver or paper, is merely a full legal 
tender due-bill issued by the government to the laborer in acknowledgment of 
the amount of service performed by him for the good of society which he ac- 
cepts on the credit of the government that society in return will receive it 
back in exchange for any labor or its results tnat he may desire. These bills 
derive their worth from the wealth or taxable property and integrity of the 
nation issuing them just as any negotiable note derives its worth from the 
wealth and integrity of the drawee, and not from the worth of the material 
composing them. This is evident from the fact that if all the gold and silver 
coin of all nations were destroyed to-day and the same amount of legal tender 
notes issued by government substituted each dollar of the paper currency 
would have the same value that the gold and silver now has, and no more real 
intrinsic value to the toiling masses would be destroyed than if so much paper 
had been destroyed, and the only effect on the business of the world be sup- 
plying it with an equally valuable and much more convenient and advantag- 
ious currency. Consequently all money derives its value purely as money 
from the stamp of government. Our Master recognized this principle of po- 
litical economy in a reply to the treacherous committee of Herodians and 
Pharisees who came to ensnare him by drawing from him an expressed decis- 
ion on a political question between them, when he said, "Show me the tribute 
money, and they brought unto him a penny, and he saith unto them whose 
is this image and superscription? They say unto him Caesar's. Then saith 
he unto them, render therefore unto Cassar the things that are Caesar's, and 
unto God the things that are God's, [make due returns to Caesar for the 
money value which the penny derives from the stamp of his image, and make 
due returns to God for values derived from the stamp of his image."] 

The United States Supteme Court said, "Whatever power there is over the 
currency is vested in Congress. If the power to declare what is money is not 
in Congress it is annihilated." 

Thirdly, the value or purchasing power of money is governed by the ratio 
of its volume to the volume of exchanges or uses for money. Suppose the volume 
of exchanges in a given community to be equal to fifty millions annually, and 
the volume of currency one million dollars. Now if the volume of exchange in- 
creases to a hundred million without any increase in the volume of currency the 
value of every dollar is doubled, and the value of commodities falls to one-half 
the former price. Or if the volume of exchanges remains the same, and the 
volume of currency be diminished to one-half million the value or purchasing 
power of money iB doubled, and the prices of commodities falls to one-half 
their former value. Or if the volume of money be doubled without any change 
in the volume of exchanges, or, if the volume of money remain the same, and 
the volume of exchanges be diminished one-half, the priceB of commodities in 
either case are doubled. 

Fourthly, all wealth is produced by labor applied to land (land in political 
economy includes all the forces of nature, as water, air, &c. ) In all exchanges 
the price of an article should never be more than the cost of production, in- 
cluding a fair remuneration for effecting exchanges. Thus, if a hundred 
pounds of fish could be procured by a day's labor, and only twenty -five pounds 
of venison, men would exchange, not pound for pound but labor for labor ; 
that is, at the rate of four pounds of fish for one of venison. I know political 
economists claim that it is just, and it is generally so considered, and it has 
the sanction of law and custom to charge all above the cost of production, in- 
cluding just remuneration for the labor of effecting exchanges that articles of 
necessity that are scarce will bring in the market. But this is only taking ad- 
vantage of purchasers necessities to extort an unjust price for commodities. 
We admit that in as much as sellers having an over supply on the market of 
any commodity are sometimes compelled to sell at an abnormal low price, by 
way of compensation they, perhaps, should be allowed temporarily to charge a 
slightly abnormal high price when scarcety creates an abnormal demand. But 
this is only one necessary injustice approximately compensating another. It 
does not affect the point we are discussing. Charges above cost including the 
labor of exchange is the principle of monopoly. Its injustice is more appar- 
ent when the same principle is exhibited on a larger scale. 

Suppose a company of men to own a rich store of provision in a country ex- 



posed to a long continued famine like the ample stores of Egypt laid up by the 
miraculous foresight and providence of Joseph against the seven years famine 
the owners of the provisions could extort from the people, not only their cat- 
tle and lands as Pharaoh and Joseph did from the Egyptian laborers in ex- 
change for bread to save their lives, (G-en. 49:13 — 31) but they could so raise 
the price of their commodities above the normal rate that they could buy 
them and their families into perpetual slavery by acting on this unjust princi- 
ple of charging above the cost of production all the market will bear when the 
purchasers necessities compel them to purchase at any price. It should be 
understood that what we mean by cost of production is the average cost, or 
amount of labor required to produce the article. Some might produce the 
same article with much less labor than others. They would be fairly entitled 
to the superior productiveness of their own labor in receiving a price above 
the labor cost to them. Again, articles might be produced by much less labor 
sometimes when sold than when first produced, or in some cases it might re- 
quire more labor to produce them. The average amount of labor required to 
produce them when sold should guage the value invariably. All sellers who 
take advantage of purchasers necessities to extort excessive prices ar« extor- 
tioners whom Paul teaches cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor. 6:10.) 

Now I claim that gold and silver are like polygamy and slavery indirectly, 
but none the less clearly and positively condemned by the Bible as well as 
sound reason as an exclusive money or basis for money in the increased and 
constantly increasing population and exchanges in the civilized nations of the 
present day. Because its value has not kept pace, and cannot keep pace with 
the increased exchanges or needs of money so that any kind of prohibitory 
usury laws, however well enforced, can prevent the money owners from doing 
injustice to borrowers, as those who need to borrow, either by excess interest- 
charges, or by refusing to lend. Consequently, the whole history of the world 
demonstrates the utter failure of all laws ever passed against usury in any na- 
tion where gold and silver are used as an exclusive money (unless the Israelite 
nation is an exception; to even retard, to any considerable extent the en- 
croachments of the money owners upon borrowers by the unjust purchasing 
power it acquired by the ever increasing volume of exchanges. Thus making 
money monopolists the rulers of nations. 

We repeat that the simple fact that it could be made a suitable medium of 
exchange to meet the ends of justice in carrying on the limited exchanges of 
the Israelites in their peculiar circumstances, in which each citizen had an 
equal inalenable land inheritance, and lending for speculation and gain had no 
existance, and all interest charges were entirely prohibited, and debts released 
every seventh year, is no evidence that it can be made now to answer this end 
in the existing altered condition of things either by abolishing interest or not 
abolishing it. 

In order that money be a just standard of value its volume should bear a 
uniform ratio to the volume of exchanges, or in other words its supply should 
bear a uniform ratio to the demand. For instance in the countries using silver 
and gold exclusively as money in a given year the cost of producing and effec- 
ting the exchange of a bushel of wheat be equal to the cost of producing and 
exchanging a dollar then a dollar is the normal price of a bushel of wheat, and 
a bushel of wheat is the normal price of one dollar. But, if another year the 
same labor produce but half a crop as in partial failures which frequently oc- 
cur, and the demand for wheat remains the same wheat will rise to two dol- 
lars per bushel ; because it requires the same labor to raise and exchange a 
bushel of wheat that it does to produce two dollars. But again suppose a full 
crop be raised the same as the first year but the second year the needs and de- 
mand for wheat be doubled, other things remaining the same, wheat rises to 
the same price as though but half a crop had been raised, and there had been 
no increased demand regardless of the cost of production. Now the cost of 
producing a gold or silver dollar is the same one year that it is another, but as 
population and exchanges are continually increasing and doubling they con- 
tinually increase and double the need and demand for money whose gold and 
silver quantity remains the same, or but little increased each year consequen- 
tly it is continually increasing and doubling in price and cannot maintain a 
uniform value (property price or what it will bring in the market. Price is of- 



ten an abnormal value, so as to render it a just standard of value.) Its advan- 
tages are wholly on the side of those who own it, or monopolize its use as a cur- 
rency. 

But, it should be remembered that although it makes no difference what the 
value of the material is of which a nation makes its money any more than it 
does the value of the material composing its yardstick or its bushel, the length 
of the one and the capacity of the other constituting them correct standards of 
measurement, yet money must have extrinsic representative value in order to 
be money, (and have consequent capacity to draw interest) and be a standard 
expression of value. It is true we need a money to perfectly meet the ends of 
justice that is a perfect measurement of value. But as it is impossible to so 
regulate the supply and demand of the commodities measured by the yard- 
stick and the bushel that they will, or can measure commodities of the same 
kind of invariable and uniform value at all times like they measure length and 
capacity so it is impossible to make any metallic, any more than a vegetable 
production a just measurement of value based solely on its value as a commo- 
dity. The rate of interest that money can draw determines its value. This 
should be invariable and uniform, and on an equality with the gains of labor 
at all times. The best monetary system that human sagacity can ever devise 
can only approximate this ; but it may be closely approximated, and practi- 
cally deliver the industrious and enterprises of the civilized world from the 
exclusive gold and silver monitary swindle which has oppressed them through 
all past time by the nefarious extortions of usury. We therefore maintain 
that, instead of attempting to adopt an exclusively metallic currency based 
on its commodity value that can meet the ends of justice in carrying on the 
trade and commerce of the world by either regulating by legal enactment the 
rate of interest it has capacity to draw, or by the legal prohibition of all inter- 
est as under the barter monetary system of the Hebrew Theocracy in that par- 
tially civilized age, government can adopt, and is under the highest obligation 
to adopt a money which always has capacity by a proper adjustment of the 
supply to the demand to draw a just rate, but can never have capacity to draw 
usury which we define, an unjust rate of interest. This would obviate the 
necessity of prohibitory usury laws, and adequately supply the people with 
the best medium of exchange ever known to the world. This can be effected 
by the government issuing all money of paper material, and supplying the 
people with it at 1 h per cent, per annum interest, (which is equal to the aver- 
age gains of labor) on good security. The government should provide too 
against its becoming valueless by a redundant issue by receiving on deposit in 
its treasury its own money at 1| per cent, per annum interest if ever any 
money owners could not find a more profitable investment for their money. 
Other plans might be adopted to prevent over issue or depreciation of value 
therefrom, but we suggest this as the most expedient in our judgment. 

We do not accept the definition of usury given by our standard literary au- 
thorities, and sanctioned by the Protestant Churches of the present day which 
the people are educated from childhood to believe; namely, that usury is un- 
lawful interest. The absurdity of this definition is manifest from the follow- 
ing considerations: 

First, no one can contend that theft, lying, adultery, or usury, which the 
Bible classes together as of equal enormity, is made unjust and criminal sim- 
ply by its being prohibited by the Bible and civil laws; but it is self -evident 
that these acts are necessarily and inherently unjust and criminal in their na- 
ture and essential principles, and cannot but be so where there is no Bible, or 
civil law prohibiting them, neither can they be made just or less criminal by 
being sactioned or even enjoined by law. The Bible condemns them, and civil 
laws shotild condemn them because they are unjust and criminal in order to 
prevent their injustice and criminality. 

Second, Jno. Wesley in the general rules of the M. E. Church defines usury 
to mean unlawful interest, which voices the sentiment and teaching of modern 
Christendom in relation to the meaning of usury. But this is an innovation 
against the plain teaching of the Bible, and teaching and practice of the prim- 
itive church. Dr. Wayland in his Elements of Moral Science, which is a text 
book in many colleges says, "The rate of interest should not in any case be 
fixed bv law." Therefore were Wesley's definition correct usury could only 



be the violation of a law that Wayland deems unjust; and were Wayland's 
theory correct he would confine us to an exclusive gold and silver money ba- 
sis, and contrary to the plain law of God in the Scripture sanction and au- 
thorize by the law of Church and State any kind of usury charges that the 
money market would bear. Webster in his unabridged dictionary says, ' ' Usury 
formerly denoted any legal interest ; but in this sense the word is no longer in 
use." These facts only show how irrational the conclusions often reached by 
great and good men, who are standards of authority in the religious, literary, 
and political spheres when environed with an erroneous public sentiment, es- 
pecially when discovering and teaching the truth subjects them to persecu- 
tion and slander as it did Christ, and his Apostles, and the reformers who ex- 
posed the errors and crimes of the Romish Church, and now does the preacher 
as well as the statesman who, ''Cries aloud, spares not, lifts up his voice like a 
trumpet, and shows God's people their transgression and the house of Jacob 
their sin" in sanctioning and upholding usury, and the criminal monopolies 
that rob the people of their rights. 

I am aware, too, that the position I take is at variance with the theory of 
Rev. D. Oglesby and other reformers who maintain that all interest and rent 
should be entirely abolished. I admit, however, that they are correct in re- 
lation to the Mosaic code forbidding all interest charges to citizens and the 
ends of justice requiring it in the condition of their country and government 
with their monetary system. But I do not deem that demonstrative evidence 
that fn no case whatever it can be just to allow interest charges. I maintain 
that usury in the Bible sense is unjust interest, and that in their peculiar cir- 
cumstances justice would not admit of interest. The prohibition of usury in 
the Mosaic code was designed mainly, if not solely, to forestall the possibility 
of a money monopoly power of extortion the same as the inalienable agrarian 
land division was designed to forestall the possibility of a land monopoly pow- 
er of extortion. The Mosaic code was given to Moses by the Angel of the Old 
covenant who is Jesus Christ the coming King of all nations, and was most 
wisely adapted to the people with their errors in that age of ignorance to pre- 
vent poverty by forestalling monopoly, and relieve what might occur under 
equitable laws. The prohibition of usury would not have prevented the ex- 
tortions of money monopoly had not the same law that forbid usury enjoined 
every capitalist "to lend to every needy borrower sufficient for his need in that 
which hewanteth." (Deut. 15:8. Ps. 37:20 and Ps. 112:5.) To prevent mo- 
nopoly and bring the Hebrews on an equality in the equitable distribution of 
wealth with their gold and silver monetary system in addition to the prohibi- 
tion of interest the principal of all debts was released every seventh year. 
(Deut. 15:112.) To refuse to lend to a needy citizen, to strike bargains, or 
conduct a business for purposes of gain that unjustly affected others or work- 
ed to their disadvantage came virtually and really within the meaning of usu- 
ry. It should be remembered that the permission given in the Mosaic code to 
charge interest of foreigners was only tolerated like polygamy on account of 
"the hardness of their hearts," or prevailing national prejudice against foreign- 
ers among all nations in that age (it was expressly forbidden when they were 
poor and fallen in decay Lev. 25:33-38) and designed to terminate when all 
people shall be brought equally into full citizenship under the universal reign 
of Christ. The fact, too, that when foreigners were "poor and fallen in de- 
cay" usury charges were forbidden is unmistakable evidence that the prohi- 
bition of usury was not merely a charitable provision for the poor and unfor- 
tunate, but that it was required by equity that no citizen borrowers might 
suffer injustice from creditors. It is pre-supposed however that borrowers 
were really needy and borrowed only of those who had to spare. 

We should not fail to understand the heineousness of the crime as set forth 
in the Old and New Testament. Over four centuries after the Angel of the 
Covenant gave the law from Sinai against usury, the Holy Ghost by the 
mouth of David the royal type of Christ, in the fifteenth Psalm, classes the 
usurer with the liar, slanderer, evil-doer, maligner, and the judge who takes 
bribes against the innocent. And again over eight centuries after by the 
mouth of Ezekiel (18:10—13) the usurer is classed with the murderer, idolater, 
violent oppressor which are all alike condemned as capital crimes. Ezekiel 
again denounces it as extortioning and dishonest gain. (Ez. 22:12—3.) 



■—^—^ ^^j^^g—^^gg-gggg ., <s _... j agg; ■ ' 

About fifty years after Ezekiel's denunciations against the usurer, in the days 
of Nehenniah when he was building the walls of Jerusalem, in time of dearth, 
the nobles and rulers, who from the income of large salaries had an abundance 
of money to lend, and all sorts of other commodities to sell, took advantage 
of the time of general scarcity as usurers do to violate the prohibitory usury 
law, and extort interest from their needy subjects at 1 per cent, a month, 12 
per cent, per annum (Neh. 5:11) and demanding real estate mortgage security, 
and even bought some of them into slavery. When under these intolerable 
oppressions, their complaints came to Nehemiah he rebuked the nobles and 
rulers, and raised a popular assembly against them (Neh. 5:7) which humbled 
and reformed them, and they could only hold their offices by restoring all the 
usury of every kind which they extorted from the people to them again, re- 
lease all their debts, and take an oath authoritatively administered by the 
Priests, to obey the law, which they, no doubt, faithfully observed during their 
lives. (Neh. 5:1—13.) 

When Moses foretold the coming of his Antitype, "a prophet raised up from 
among their brethren like unto himself," he meant like himself as a king and 
political reformer of nations destined to the kingship of the whole world ; 
and, Moses commanded them to hear him as they heard him when he gave 
their national code to him from Horeb. for the people. (Deut. 18:15 — 18 &c. 
Acts 3:22 — 20Y) Jesus cautioned the people to "think not that he came to de- 
stroy the law" [which he gave from Sinai] or the prophets, but said "I am not 
come to destroy but to fulfill [to complete, to perfect, the opposite of abol- 
ish."] (Math. 5:17.) It is obvious that Jesus came to destroy no law in the 
Mosaic code that the purposes of justice required, but enjoined more perfec- 
tly the principles of justice and benevolence on the part of lenders and credi- 
tors to borrowers and debtors, and said, "Do good, and lend, hoping for noth- 
ing." * * * "Give co him that asketh thee, and from him that would bor- 
row of thee turn not thou away." (Lu. 6:35, Math. 5:42.) Thus we see the 
spirit and principle of justice and benevolence more perfectly developed than 
it was in the Mosaic code is peremptorily enjoined in the gospel upon all per- 
sons and nations. 

The primitive christian church it seems condemned all interest as usury \\n- 
til the protestant schism, and the Roman church continue to hold this theory 
in their doctrine, at least, until this day. 

We will now consider the different condition of existing countries and gov- 
ernments which give rise to the justice of limited interest charges in certain 
cases: 

First, the methods of gain and speculation in our own and other countries 
often enables the borrower to invest money borrowed at a high rate of interest 
so as to realize greater returns from it than the interest of the lender. 1 
know that these methods of gain are generally unjust. But in as much as 
they have the erroneous sanction of law, and the public sense of right the 
lender does no injustice to the borrower to charge him all his money will 
bring in the market. 

Secmd, the increased and extensive commerce of the nations of the world 
to-day requires a different money, more conveniently carried and handled, and 
of more extensive volume than the precious metals in use among commercial 
nations in order to the requirements of justice, and to provide such a curren- 
cy and adjust its volume to the needs of exchange so as to maintain a uniform 
value I regard equitable interest as a necessity and required by a principle of 
justice. 

Third, I regard the entire prohibition of all interest in the Mosaic code ne- 
cessitated by their defective monetary system. Their mineral commodity 
money would naturally and necessarily have an interest bearing value high or 
low according to the demands of trade for a medium of exchange if interest 
was allowed to be charged. This would soon result in the interest on money 
absorbing the wealth of the country in the hands of the few. And as this 
money could not be so proportioned to the volume of exchange that people 
could be supplied with money at a uniform and equitably low rate of interest 
it made it necessary to prevent unjust interest to prevent all interest. But 
we do not understand that the prohibition relates to a just monetary system 
in which the money is a just measure of value with a uniform and equitable 



rate of interest on an equality with the gains of labor. 

The worst form of usury resulting from our usurous monetary system is 
created by bankers contracting the volume of money when it suits their inter- 
est to do so and proportionately increase its value (price) and in the same 
proportion decrease the price of other commodities whenever it suits the in- 
terests of our bankers and bond holders to do so, and also, by increasing the 
volume whenever they see a gain in i-aising that end of the scale. 

This dishonest practice of our monetary system is precisely the same in 
principle as that practiced in the church by her members in the days of the 
prophet Amos, a poor laboring herdsman, raised up of the Lord at a time of 
general peace and prosperity in both Judah and Israel which as in the Chris- 
tendom of to-day only gave occasion to luxury, pride, vanity, injustice, and 
crime which he thus denounces: "Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, 
even to make the poor of the land to fail, when will the new moon be gone 
that we may sell corn'r 1 and the Sabbath that we may set forth wheat, making 
the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? 
that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes?" 
(Amos 8:4 — 6.) To increase the purchasing power of the shekel or dollar by 
contracting the volume of currency so that a large quantity or weight of com- 
modities can be bought with it is precisely the same in principle and effect as 
"making the shekel great and the ephah small, and falsifying the balances by 
deceit so that the capitalists buy the poor [into slavery or servile dependence 
equal to, if not worse than chattel slavery] for silver and the needy for a pair 
of shoes." The only difference being that these Jewish capitalists were land 
monopolists who sold staple commodities to poor and needy laborers by un- 
dersized standards of measure, and weighed the money received in payment 
by balancing it against an oversized shekel and thus robbed them of their 
earnings while our usurers are money monopolists who lend money when its 
volume is great and value small, but receive interest and principal in payment 
when its volume is small and value great which volume and consequent 
money value is under their control. With our monetary system by contrac- 
ting and expanding the volume of currency in circulation, not according to 
the needs of exchange, but to suit the extortioning gains of bankers and 
bondholders is fast reducing our already impoverished laboring classes to the 
helpless state of slavish dependence that capitalists did the poor and needy 
laborers in the days of Amos in Judah and Israel, and this, too. under the il- 
lusive guise of "honest money." 

How shamefully honest debtors were swindled by the specie resumption act 
when the volume of currency in the United States was reduced by it from 
about two billions to about one-half billion. Simultaneous with the passage 
of the act the usurers of our land, wide awake to its effect in enhancing the 
value or purchasing power of their money fairly flooded the country with 
their offers of money to lend at from seven to ten per cent, interest on first 
mortgage real estate security. Our laborers, sons of our noble yeomenry, 
who by honest toil create all of our wealth by labor applied to land seeing 
our free and cheap lands being fast taken possession of, and largely, too, by 
land monopolists, and its price fast rising above the reach of the poor laborer 
which must forever end the hope of our country as an asylum for the poor 
and home for the oppressed, in a praiseworthy effort to secure a homestead 
with comfortable improvements borrowed this money in good faith at the 
usurers rate of interest ; but, when pay day came, and long before in many 
cases, each dollar with which they pay interest or principal possessed several 
times the value of the dollar they borrowed in consequence of the government 
having demonetized about three-fourths the volume of currency which it cre- 
ated by demonetizing silver, destroying greenbacks, &c. Notwithstanding we 
have no specie basis or exclusive specie money as the Jews had ; for our mo- 
nopolistic rulers found that the contraction of the volume of currency to 
specie as a basis would so severely oppress the many laborers of our country 
that it threatened the exposure of the time-honored exclusive gold and silver 
money basis delusion by which in all the past, in all countries, monopolistic 
lords more than by armies have robbed and oppressed the laboring masses. 
Consequently they virtually remonetize in full the remaining greenbacks in 
circulation — three hundred and forty-six million — and declare specie resumed 



which restores the credit of our currency, which is all there is of the specie 
resumption fraud. Had it not been for their partial demonetization in the 
exceptions to their legal tender property — interest on the public debt, and 
duty on imports — with a view to destroying their money value, they would 
have remained at par with gold from the time they were issued through all 
time. But the effect upon the honest debtor class is they are robbed of their 
earnings in some cases their whole farms with the improvements simply by the 
dollar borrowed being small in value, and the dollar when pay day comes, in 
some instances three times greater in value than the one borrowed besides the 
interest paid annually constantly increasing in value. Our monetary system 
based on gold and silver interest bearing bonds will be subject to similar ruin- 
ous fluctuations in the value of its currency in circulation as suits the interests 
of our moneyed aristocracy long as we have a currency based exclusively on 
the two precious metals, which have furnished a currency most craftily, ,and 
successfully adapted in all countries to secure monopolistic denomination over 
the laboring masses. 

I cannot in this short essay give the comparison of the gains of labor with 
interest gains as presented in Edward Kellogg's new monetary system (while 
we advocate his monetary theory as correct in its general principles we do not 
endorse all the arguments he uses in its favor, but no American voter, espec- 
pecially laborer, should fail to read the book,) in which he demonstrates that 
it does not exceed one and one-half per cent, per annum. Suffice it to say, no 
one can call this in question. We claim that all money should have a labor 
basis; its value should be guaged by labor, and in order to this, and to rem- 
edy the injustice of our present monetary system its rate of interest should be 
uniform, and correspond to the gains of labor. Then usury would be preven- 
ted by government supplying the people with a money based on the credit of 
the government issuing it in a way that it could not have capacity to draw 
usury, neither could it fall below a just standard of value to any considerable 
extent so as to do injustice to any one. For the rate of interest that money 
can draw determines its value, and on the plan we suggest the government 
would give out its paper at a just rate, and receive its own paper on deposit at 
an approximately just rate of interest to prevent injustice resulting from a de- 
crease in value by an excessive issue. In England, after business had been 
paralized by maintaining interest at exhorbitantly high rates, money has been 
lent at even lower rates than one and one-fourth per cent, and still possessed 
purchasing power sufficient for the needs of exchanges. 

The pulpit, public schools, and the two dominant political parties of our day 
instead of their instructing voters in the stealthy power of usury to 
appropriate the earnings of labor to idle usurers teach the opposite, and de- 
nounce a money that has not capacity for usury as worthless ; but I thank God 
that many of our sons of toil are discovering the fraud by which they^are en- 
slaved, and are making strained efforts to save labor from the irretrievable 
thralldom to which it is reduced in the old world. 

I cannot in this short treatise exhibit at length the injustice of 1 usury, but I 
will present a few facts that will clearly demonstrate that it is one of the 
worst covert means of stealing the earnings of labor under the sanction of law 
and misguided popular sentiment in church and state that ever afflicted^ the 
world. 

"If the borrowers pay interest half yearly at the rate of one per cent, per 
annum the amount doubles the principal in about seventy years ; and at three 
per cent, it doubles the principal in less than twenty -four years, and at six per 
cent. * in less than twelve years ; and at seven per cent, in about ten years. 
One dollar loaned at six per cent, per annum, the interest collected and re- 
loaned half yearly for a period of three hundred and sixty years will accumu- 
late the sum of $1,078,741,834, which is more than the assessed value of the 
whole state of New York ; while the same dollar loaned at one per cent, and 
the interest collected and reloaned in the same manner for the same period 
will accumulate little more than $37. * * * The legal interest in the state 
of New York is seven per cent. , and one dollar loaned at this rate for three 
hundred and sixty years would accumulate a greater sum than the valuation 
of the whole United States. Suppose a foreign nation should lend to the gov- 
ernment of the United States $100,000 at seven per cent., on condition that 



our government should give her bonds half yearly for the payment of the in- 
terest, and the sum should accumulate for a term of three hundred and sixty 
years it would amount to $0,971,947,073,000,000. However prosperous our 
people might be they could not pay the debt; for the amount is more than the 
valuation of the property of the whole world." 

"One cent placed at compound interest at the beginning of the christian era 
at six per cent, per annum amounts to a quatordecellion in April 1858. That 
we may have an idea of this vast sum let it be observed that one per cent, per 
annum of it is over three hundred decillion of dollars. A cubic foot of gold 
weighs 1203 pounds, and is worth $350,000. The number of cubic feet in the 
earth is forty sextillions, and if it was solid gold, would be worth fourteen 
octillion dollars. This interest for one second of time would be worth more 
than twenty million globes of gold as large as the earth!" This the accumida- 
tion of but one cent at a low legal rate. Our bankers and brokers often lend 
at from 10 to 20 per cent, per annum. But who cannot see the intolerable in- 
justice of even six per cent? When our lands are all occupied, and oiir coun- 
try becomes as densely populated as England, even with wages at the mini- 
mum rates of the pauper labor of England, then money cannot draw over 3 or 
4 per cent. (3 per cent, is the average in -England) for when laborers cannot 
have access to lands of their own they cannot bear a greater interest burden. 
Our wealthy usurers borrow their money now at these rates. 

The policy of our Lord's government over his chosen nation discouraged 
contracting debts; he gave laws against creditors exacting usury ef borrowers, 
and enjoined the release of all debts to citizens every seventh year. One of 
his wisest Kings taught that, "The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrow- 
er is servant to the lender." (Prov. 22:7.) But how opposite the policy of 
nominal christian England and the United States as well as other states of 
Christendom. England borrowed an enormous sum of money of its wealthy 
citizens, which it expended in wars. This national debt amounts to about 
$4,000,000,000. She has passed a law to never pay the debt. Her creditors do 
not want it paid, because the borrower is seiwant to the lender; therefore in 
addition to receiving $120,000,000 interest annually, at 3 per celt, they rule 
the nation reduced to a servile dependence on them by the power of their 
money. Their pauperized laborers must pay this interest by an annual tax on 
their products from which they receive no benefit, but increase the wealth of 
their tyrannical lords which only adds to their own burdens. The U. S. 
is following in her wake with a similar monetary system whose adaptability to 
support aristocracies has demonstrated its right to be entitled the aristocratic 
monetary system. She has a national debt of nearly two billion which the 
politicians of the dominant parties are adroitly and so far successfully, trying 
to perpetuate as in England for the benefit of usurers. The rich lords who 
control legislation in the interest of their monopolistic schemes are making 
millionaires by the thousand and paupers by the million and fast creating the 
extremes of wealth and poverty found in the old world. "The present in- 
debtedness [of every kind] in our country is not less than $22,000,000,000. The 
annual interest on this [at per cent. | is $1,320,000,000. The average receipts 
of the wage laborers of our country, including farm hands and skilled mechan- 
ics is not to exceed one dollar per day for three hundred days in each year. 
Divide the sum of the interest paid by three hundred — the average pay of the 
wealth producers — and we have the number of men whose labor is required to 
pay this interest, which is four million four hundred thousand, or considera- 
bly over one-third of the able bodied men in the nation. Four million four 
hundred thousand of the people working all the time to pay this interest 
means that another four million four hundred thousand shall divide with them 
their own pitiful income of three hundred dollars per year. As three hun- 
dred dollars will not give to two for a year even sufficient clothing and food 
the children must be sent to the factories to help eke out the income. Year 
by year the debt increases, and year by year the increase in the number of 
these children grows in the same proportion." 

•'This truthful expose of England's debt, in London Justice is just as appli- 
capable to our national debt which was thrust upon us by a former genera- 
tion. 

'It is an old political maxim of nearly 200 years standing that taxation 



without representation is tyranny, yet the very existence of a national debt 
involves the taxation of generations yet unborn, for whom it is physically im- 
possible to have any voice whatever in the imposition of the taxation neces- 
sary to meet the interest of the debt. The debt is then a clear violation of the 
plainest political maxims on which our present political system is said to rest. 
It is the dead governing the present, the present legislating for the future, the 
past arranging for the plunder of the present and the future." 1 

Notwithstanding the plain teaching of the Bible against usury and extortion, 
and the severest denunciation against these vices we are to-day in this chris- 
tian land ruled by usurers and extortioners. Although the church and minis- 
try are professedly against these crimes yet like their professed opposition to 
chattel slavery in our Southern States in ante-bellum days whose white-wash 
opposition to the nefarious institution was its main support so our clergy and 
churches are the strongest bulwarks supporting usury and monopoly. (I speak 
of the clergy as a class and the churches as organic bodies admitting the ex- 
ceptional few in each which oppose these evils as we do.) Notwithstanding 
their opposition to Bible truth and sound political economy the truths of the 
Bible are our strength, and its promises our hope. When the Antitype of 
Moses came to fulfill the law, he came from among our brother workmen, a 
poor peasant carpenter. In establishing his kingdom he found the same spirit 
of antagonism in the rulers of the church to the pure truth of the Scriptures 
which they professed to believe and obey that we find existing to-day. The 
wealthy and fashionable controlled the church. The clergy and ruling spirits 
denounced Christ and thrust him out as a fanatical impostor because of his 
identification and affiliation with the toiling common people who heard him 
gladly. His example and precepts as a preacher and worker in their interest 
against injustice and oppression which gladdened the common people con- 
demned the aristocracy in church and state and incensed them to martyr him. 
But his example and precepts still live, and by his divine power as our Great 
Grand Master Workman are destined to dethrone capital, and enthrone labor 
and godlike manhood as the ruling power of nations instead of money or brute 
force. May his kingdom come, and will be done on earth as it is done in 
heaven. 



[COPYBIOHTED BY THE AUTHOR, 1884.] 



xJIERRATA.f* 



On page first in third line of fourth verse there appears a small 1 in the word 
love which should be a capital L. On page second, fifteenth line, in last par- 
agraph the word live occurs, which should be lived. On page third, first line 
in second paragraph there is a t, which should be an r. On page fourth, 
twenty-seventh line, first paragraph, appears the word as. which should read 
or • on same page, in same line the word excess comes in, which should be ex- 
cessive. Also, last line in last paragraph, same page, it reads property, which 
should be properly. 



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